1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for controlling the operation of a hand-held portable cellular telephone, and more particularly to a method for displaying a character message received from an integrally combined television (TV) and portable cellular phone (hereinafter, referred to as xe2x80x9cTV phonexe2x80x9d) in a scrolling manner on a viewing screen thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, rapid and wide spread use of a portable telephone as a widespread personal communication appliance has driven development of portable phones with a variety of functions in addition to a simple conversation function. For example, portable phones have developed to include a calculator, a biorhythm checking feature, and the capability of transmitting and/or receiving images of a TV and a video camera. The term xe2x80x9cTV phonexe2x80x9d herein refers to wireless portable cellular phones of all types which also provide television (TV) broadcast through a display unit of the portable phone, in addition to a cordless telephone conversation feature for telecommunication.
An example of the above TV phone is disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 1995-46026 entitled xe2x80x9cA Combined TV Receiver and Cellular Phonexe2x80x9d by LG Electronics Co., Ltd., filed in the Korean Industrial Property Office on Dec. 1, 1995 and published on Jul. 31, 1997 by that Office.
For reception of a TV broadcast, the portable phone is equipped with two radio frequency units therein, as disclosed in the above-mentioned Korean patent application 1995-46026. The reason for this is that a frequency bandwidth necessary for transmitting and receiving telecommunication messages (i.e., voice and data) is different from that for a TV broadcast. An operation mode of the TV phone is classified into a phone mode, a waiting mode, and a TV mode, which is also used as the waiting mode. When operating in the TV mode, the TV phone allows a user to watch and hear images and voices of the television program received on a display unit, i.e. a Thin Film Transistor (TFT) Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), and a speaker or an earphone of the portable phone.
Disadvantages arise in the prior art when the TV phone is operating in the TV mode and there is an incoming call and/or an incoming character data message. For example, the TV phone of the above-cited patent application 1995-46026 cannot process character messages received by the transmitter/receiver of the telecommunications feature when the TV phone is operating in TV mode and receiving a TV signal via the receiver of the TV. Thus, a user using the TV phone in the TV mode is not alerted to an incoming character message.
When the TV phone of patent application 1995-46026 receives an incoming voice call, it is impossible to directly switch the TV mode to the phone mode while in the TV mode. Accordingly, the user must turn off the TV phone, manually switch the TV mode to the phone mode with regard to every incoming call, and turn the phone back on. This consumes battery power and is highly inconvenient to the user.
There is therefore a need for a TV phone that rapidly and accurately informs a user of both an incoming call and an incoming character data message when viewing a TV program in the TV mode.
Therefore, an object of the invention is to provide more efficient communication of a character message received when viewing a TV program in a TV mode of a TV phone without interfering with the user""s viewing of the TV program.
It is another object of the invention to provide display of where the message may be scrolled on the screen of the display unit.
It is an objective of the invention to provide a method of controlling an operation mode of a TV phone, where the TV phone includes a TV unit that reproduces and outputs a video signal from a selected channel. A display unit interfaces with the TV unit and displays the inputted video signal from the selected channel while in a TV mode. An MRFU receives data of a forward channel transmitted from a base station. An MSP provides a channel selection signal to the TV unit and transmits and receives voice and character signals by controlling the MRFU and generates a display control signal responsive to an incoming character message. An OSD generates a video signal corresponding to the display control signal received at an input of the OSD and provides the generated video signal to the display unit. The method of controlling the operation mode of the TV phone comprises the steps of receiving a character message transmitted from the base station through the forward channel when the video signal generated by the TV unit is displayed on a screen in said display unit during the TV mode. In addition, a video signal of the OSD corresponding to the first line in the received character message is displayed on a portion of the screen of the display unit, while the other portions of the screen display the respective portion of the video signal generated by the TV unit.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, the method further comprises the step of scrolling up or scrolling-down the received character message in response to input of an up-scroll selecting signal or a down-scroll selecting signal generated from an up-scroll key or a down-scroll key arranged on a key pad.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, the method further comprises the step of clearing the character message displayed on the screen of the display unit (the display unit thus only presenting images of the TV program on the air), when an output terminating signal is entered on the keypad.